One of the key issues in military urban operations is the ability to obtain timely situational awareness of the target area. One solution utilizes Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) to provide this information but challenges remain as to how to accurately emplace and control these vehicles from extended ranges. This research and development project, Stork, demonstrated the capability to aerially insert a UGV from a UAV into an area of operations and then use a communications relay pod on the UAV to extend the range of control of UGVs. The UGV insertion was done using a parachute delivery system from after an altitude of 400 feet. The communications relay pod effectively increased the tele-operated control range of the UGV from typical 1-2 km line-of-sight limitation. Tele-operated control was demonstrated out to a distance of 26 km. Transparent to the physical elements of the demonstration was the integration of the Joint Architecture for Unmanned Systems (JAUS) on the UGVs which allows a single operator control unit (OCU) to control multiple disparate UGVs simply by selecting a particular UGV from a drop-down menu. The ability to control multiple vehicles on the ground at the extended range and switch control from one vehicle to the next and back was also successfully demonstrated.

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